By Lauren Prince, CFP®, CFS, CDFA™

Did you know that the United States Department of Labor has a Women's Bureau created by a 1920 Congressional mandate? Apparently, it's the only federal agency responsible to advocate on behalf of women in the workforce.

One of the many initiatives sponsored by the Women's Bureau is a program called Wi$eUp. The goal of this project is to provide financial education online to generation X and Y women and to encourage responsible saving habits for future retirement. Their website, http://wiseupwomen.tamu.edu, is maintained by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M University System. The Financial Planning Association acts in partnership with the Women's Bureau to provide financial planners to handle teleconferences and Q&A sessions online.

By Jack Gardner, CIMA®, AIFA®

As the 77 million baby-boomers move towards the retirement phase, the financial services industry is faced with an unprecedented opportunity. This baby-boomer generation controls nearly $8.5 trillion of financial assets, not to mention the trillions of dollars that are expected in inter-generational wealth transfers from their parents. I believe that this opportunity will be garnered by those financial advisers who can articulate and implement a clear retirement income plan, based upon a process and not a product.

Expensive Products

Since the birth of the baby-boomers (those born during the 19-year period from 1946–1964), this generation has affected the manufacturing and sale of everything from baby food to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. So it is no surprise to me that the ? nancial services industry is now targeting the baby boomers by trying to manufacture and sell products that aim to provide income for a retirement time frame of 30–40 years.

By Eleanor F. Peterkin, CFP®, CIMA

In these turbulent financial markets, alternative assets have bcome increasingly attractive to clients looking for diversification, enjoyment and future asset growth. The art market is particularly interesting. To learn more about this market,, chapter members and their guests gathered at the international auction house, Sotheby's on a spring evening to learn first hand about record art prices. The private viewing and tralk was held Mondday, May 19, 2008. Guests enjoyed strolling through the extensive spring auction preview of American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture. This auction featured Edward Hicks famous, "The Peaceable Kingdom with the Leopard of Serenity." Also included were paintings fromt he colonial portraits of Gilbert Stuart through the romantic landscapes and western scenes of the 19th century to the American Impressionists, the Ashcan Scchool and Modernists. Sotheby staff members on hand during our tour noted the heated market for American western art.

By Everett M. Lo

Social Security's homepage has a brane new look. In June, we launched a new home page at www.socialsecurity.gov that is more welcoming and user-friendly.

The site follows the standdard for design principles in the industry by reducing clutter, improving navigation, making better use of graphics, reducing the need to scroll down and prioritizing items on the page.

By Bob Veres, Inside Information

I've been thinking a lot lately about a presentation at the recent Retreat in Ft. Lauderdale, and Iíve come to the conclusion that Rick Kahler, of Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, SD, is right. He argued that financial planners ought to be hiring outside professionals to do the planning work for themselves and their own families. And then he offered a lot of good information about why this is so seldom done, and how we can facilitate more planner-doing- planning-for-planners activity in our profession.

Become Wise

In his opening remarks, Kahler made an interesting distinction between an industry and a profession. An industry, he said, typically revolves around a craft-like activity, and it usually has a consistent mindset about do- it-yourself activities. He cited three examples: plumbers, auto mechanics and life insurance salespeople. When an issue comes up at home, these craftspeople inevitably do the work themselves.

By James Tissot, CFP®

In a June letter from Daniel J. Barry, the Director of Government Relations for the Financial Planning Association,, the FPA fired a warning shot across the bow of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The letter was in response to Regulatory Notice 08-24 and specifically, proposed rule 3110. The proposed rule would expand the current FINRA supervisory responsibilities of overseeing the business activities for which registration as a broker-ealer is required, to oversight of "each type of business in which it [a member] engages." The FPA contents that this would "blure the line" of oversight between investment advisers and broker-dealers.

Regulations Differ

Investment advisers and broker-dealers are regulated under different legislation and held to different levels of accountability. An investment adviser is required to act in a duciary capacity, while the latter need only fulfill a "suitability" requirement. In other words, an investment adviser must always act in the client's best interest, while a broker can choose an investment that is good enough, but pays a higher commission than the investment that would have been in "the best interest" of the client.